LOYD BURL AND THE HOOTER’S GIRL

CHAPTER 12

Saturday, April 30^th, 1988

WHERE HAS YOUR BELOVED GONE, OH FAIREST AMONG WOMEN? (Song of Solomon 6:1)

            “What do you want?” The little old lady barked through a screen door a half minute after I knocked.

            “Does Catalina Clutterbuck live…”

            “Are you blind, don’t you see the doorbell?”

            “I tried it twice, ma’am. I didn’t hear it ring.”

            “Poppycock!”

            Poppycock? Pastor Kenny Clutterbuck, this little old lady’s grandson I presumed, had warned me with these words. “You’ve heard beware of the dog? Well, beware of grandma.”

            I hadn’t taken him all that seriously, but boy, he wasn’t kidding!

            “Ma’am, my name is Loyd Burl. When Catalina lived in Iowa, she…”

            “I know who you are. You’re the Tom cat that knocked up my little Kitten.”

            I smiled. “I call her Ki…” I stopped myself. What was I thinking! Actually I wasn’t, I was flustered.

            “What are you grinning about, you so and so! Get off my porch! Get out of my yard! Get out of my town!”

            I was stunned! I stood gap mouthed, staring at her through the screen door. Even through the shade of the screen, I could see a resemblance to Cat by way of mouth and nose. Her green eyes were the same color as Cat’s. But Cat’s grandma’s eyes were small and round, whereas Cat’s were large and almond shaped.

            Grandma looked like she would have been cute and pretty as a younger woman. I could see that even through the ugliness of her demeanor. My toes curled at the thought that we were having a stare down. But low and behold, we weren’t for she barked at me again. “What part of ‘get’ do you not understand!”

            Was I insane? For I stood my ground. But I had to see Cat! I began to plead with her. “But Ma’am, I need to…”

            The screen door burst open and this little lady, who probably wasn’t even five foot tall and maybe one hundred pounds, was wielding a broom. She swung it at me like a baseball bat, and I did something similar to a Heisman trophy pose as I tried to protect myself. It wacked my upper thigh, and it stung!

            “Ma’am, I…”

            “Get!” she barked.

            I surrendered. I turned and began to march away from her home. She followed and wacked me hard right in the seat of my pants. My hips thrust forward, and I picked up the pace.

            “Where do you think you’re going? Get back here!” she ordered.

            I stopped halfway down the sidewalk. Did I hear that right? I turned, almost in a karate stance as I braced for another blow from the broom.

            “Is that all the fight you’re gonna put up for the woman carrying your child?”

            “I don’t know what you mean, ma’am. Yes, I’m leaving right now out of respect for your command. But I will do everything I can to see Catalina while I’m here in Two Harbors.”

            “Bernice, you stop that now. Sorry about my wife, young man,” an old man said as he emerged from the front door. I had been hoping Cat would appear, but at least her grandpa appeared to be somewhat of an ally. He was about six feet tall and had a full head of silvery white hair. He was buckling a belt as he walked briskly toward us.

            He chuckled pleasantly as he said, “For Pete’s sake, you would have to show up when I was on the can. Kenny warned us that you might be coming.”

            He stuck out his hand to shake, and I gratefully took it, while at the same time wondering if he had washed it. I also wondered about grandma’s name, Bernice. Did it mean ‘un nice’ in a foreign language?

            “So, Catalina is expecting me then?” I looked at the house, the door, and the windows.

            “No,” Bernice replied. “We had reason to believe you are unreliable, so we didn’t tell her you might be coming.”

            “What reason do you have to think I’m unreliable?”

            “What reason!” Un Nice barked. “Why taking advantage of our granddaughter, of course. Getting her pregnant and then skipping town.”

            “I didn’t skip town, she did!” I defended, and then realized it appeared that I was criticizing their granddaughter. “I mean she, I, we…”

            “Did you or did you not…”

            “Bernice, stop picking on the boy,” Grandpa interrupted.

            His welcoming smile made me relax enough to take a sideways glance at Grandma. To my surprise, she chuckled and winked at Grandpa. Talk about a Jekyll and Hyde moment. She grinned at me with a twinkle in her eyes. “I’m sorry, Sonny, but I wanted to see how much spunk you had. I heard tell that you took on a half dozen college boys that were harassing my Kitten. But it doesn’t seem you could do much against an old woman with a broom. Would you care to explain?”

            I cleared my throat, surprised that she knew of that incident from more than half a year ago. “Well ma’am, those guys threatening us deserved a pummeling. A grandmother protecting her granddaughter’s honor didn’t.”

            “What he’s leaving unsaid is that he could pummel a dozen Bernices with a broom if he really wanted to,” Grandpa declared with a chuckle.

            Hyde was back in a flash as her face became stern once again. “So are you acknowledging that my granddaughter’s honor needs protecting?”

            “No ma’am, I mean, well, I guess it could seem that way, but, you know…”

            “You guess? Did you or did you not impregnate my granddaughter?”

            “Well, the information I received would suggest that that is possible?”

            “Information from who?”

            “Kenny Clutterbuck, your grandson.”

            “You say it’s possible. What’s that supposed to mean?”

            “Ma’am?”

            “Are you suggesting my granddaughter had intimate relations with another man or men besides you?”

            “No ma’am, not at all!”

            “Then why is it only possible and not likely that you are the father? More than that, why is it not true?”

            “Well, ma’am. It has been several months since I have seen Catalina, so I cannot account for who she has been seeing. Once again, it seems that from talking to your grandson, Catalina had not been completely truthful to me about her, um, background.”

            “So you believe that my granddaughter might be promiscuous?”

            “Well, I suppose it is possible,” I said, and then she jammed her hands on her hips. “I mean, no ma’am! I don’t believe she is.”

            I couldn’t believe we were having this conversation! Not only were my toes curled, I felt like my knees could start knocking together like the handwriting on the wall from the Bible. (Daniel chapter 5:6)

            “Let me tell you something…”

            “Bernice, that’s enough,” Grandpa said calmly, yet with authority, cutting her off. “This young man traveled all this way to see Catalina. I assume to do the right thing and ask the expecting mother of his child to marry him. Am I right, Len?”

            “It’s Loyd, sir,” I began by correcting my name. At least he got the L right. “And yes, I would marry Catalina in a heartbeat… If she would have me that is.”

            I thought of Becky, another woman carrying my child, whom I also would have married if she had agreed. My head was beginning to hurt.

            “If she would have you? That’s a cop out if I ever heard one,” Bernice ridiculed.

            Speaking of cop, this was beginning to feel like a ‘good cop bad cop’ interrogation. Can you guess which was which?

            “Well she does have to agree to it, Sweet Pea. Am I right, Larry?”

            “It’s Loyd. sir,” I corrected. At least he got an L and a Y right this time. I glanced at Bernice’s sour expression and wondered at his term of affection. “Yes, of course she has to agree. And if she seems pleased to see me, I will indeed pop the question. So may I see her please?”

            I glanced at their front door, hoping Cat might have heard the commotion. She wasn’t there. I looked at the upstairs window, hoping to see her lovely face. She wasn’t there.

            “She’s not here,” Bernice said cooly.

            Not here! I went through all this with her grandma and she’s not even here? I thought worst case scenario. Did she returned to California?

            “She likes to go to the pier on the Sabbath, and read her Bible,” Grandpa told me.

            I frowned. It was Saturday, and back then I still thought of the Sabbath as Sunday, the day recognized by most of Christianity. But it is not the day the Bible tells us was instituted at creation (Genesis 2:2 and 3). It is also the fourth of the Ten Commandments, the Ten Commandments being the one part of the Bible God wrote with his own finger.

            Sunday keeping began through corrupt religion, most predominately beginning with the emperor Constantine in the 4th century. Nowhere in the Bible is there any change to God’s Ten Commandment Law. As a matter of fact, God does not change (Malachi 3:6). Jesus is the same yesterday, today, and forever (Hebrews 13:8).

            “She likes to go to the end, by the lighthouse if it’s not too crowded,” Grandpa continued. “If it is, you will probably find her on the rocks.”

            “The rocks?”

            “You’ll see them, just to the east of the pier.”

            “Why are you helping him? He’s not a believer,” Grandma scolded her husband. “Do you want our Kitten to be yoked with an unbeliever?”

            “He’s the father of our great grandchild, Sweet Pea. And Kitten told Kenny that he’s a seeker of truth. That’s good enough for me.”

            Grandpa told me how to get there, bless his heart. In my haste to leave, I tripped over a bush and almost fell on my face. I heard Grandma snort. “An NFL football player my foot. I’ll have to see it to believe it.”

            “He’s a punter, not a player,” I heard Grandpa say… Oh well, did it really matter? Vanity of vanities, all is vanity. (Ecclesiastes 1:2).

            I found the pier with no problem. I was surprised at how far out the little lighthouse was. My brisk pace turned into a jog. Then as I closed in on the lighthouse, I saw red brown hair hanging just past the shoulders sitting just past the lighthouse at the end of the pier. I now ran the remaining steps.

            “Cat… My love!” I bellowed as my hand touched her shoulder.

            But it turned out to be his shoulder. For a mustachioed man turned his gaze upon me. Above his mustache was a large hook nose. Above his large nose were beady brown eyes that looked surprised and did not seem pleased at all with my hand on his shoulder, or my declaration to him. His upper lip was hidden by hair, but his lower lip moved and formed the words. “Get your hand off me, dude!”

            I removed my hand as though burned. “Sorry Man, I’m looking for my girlfriend.”

            “She must be one ugly chick if she looks like me,” he replied mildly.

            “Actually, I came up fast, I was running. She’s actually very… Oh never mind, once again sorry man.”

            “Forget about it,” he said with a wave of his hand.

            Forgetting about it wasn’t to be. I doubt he would forget himself, or the half dozen people that witnessed the episode and were smirking. A couple were actually guffawing. I didn’t care, it would have been funny to me also if I wasn’t the dope calling some strange, odd looking man “my love.”

            Oh well, love, especially young love, can make you dopey. But I was high on hope. I would simply look for Cat at the rocks Grandpa suggested. As I walked the other way, I began to softly say to myself. “Oh where oh where could my Cat be, oh where oh where could she be?”